3D printing used to create a basement laboratory on the cheap

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Nobody seems to be able to figure out whether 3D printing is poised to save or ruin our economy. On the one hand, it has the potential to put so much more within the reach of so very many, but on the other, it will in doing so undercut the employers that have traditionally done all our manufacturing — and kept the economy afloat.

The latest example of 3D printing’s march on industry, though, shows the technology’s potential to combat price gouging, by offering quick, low cost alternatives in a market that is otherwise under a functional monopoly.

With Open Source Lab, a new Do-It-Yourself guidebook from Michigan Technological University professor Joshua Pearce, you can make a $5 alternative to what would otherwise have been an expensive purchase. You can print expensive items for just a few dollars. You can, Pearce claims, build up a $15,000 lab for $500 flat.

An example printed part.

Of course, we still can’t print glass, nor can we print chemicals, so many of the more expensive lab components still need to be purchased. But the simple mechanical parts, the clamps and stands, and the racks and funnels, are perfect for 3D printing. With a bit of assembly and some ordered parts, you can go even further; his $50 printed device uses an open-source microcontroller and LEDs to do the job of $4,000’s worth of equipment, a colorimeter and a nephelometer.

That is, of course, if you have the 3D printer necessary to start the work in the first place. In the book, Pearce mentions that “for $1,710 you can buy yourself a nice 3D printer,” and while that might undercut the book’s shoestring premise, it’s still substantially cheaper than buying all the bits stock from manufacturers. Besides, it’s not like that 3D printer will just stop being useful once your lab is complete — and what does “complete” mean, anyway?

From a savings standpoint, this is a little inflated; sure, it’s possible to spend $1,000 on a lab jack, but eBay and other services have made it easier and cheaper than ever to buy used lab equipment. Thus, it’s possible to set up something much closer to a conventional lab for far less than Pearce estimates, and in many cases with more reliable precision. For the purely recreational scientist, however, and certainly for cash-strapped science teachers, extreme cost cutting might be the best answer available.